


Rooftops and Invitations

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sexuality Crisis, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Nothing has changed between Dave and Karkat since Karkat came out as gay. Nothing at all. Dave is fine with all of this.





	Rooftops and Invitations

‘You guys wanna come to my house after school?’ Karkat says at lunch.

‘Yeah, dog!’ you say.

‘Sorry man, I got practice,’ John says. ‘You two should hang together though, you don’t need me to mediate anymore!’

‘Woah, Egbert,’ you say. ‘We never needed mediation, Vantas and I are chill, we’re the chillest motherfuckers out there, we just needed some dork to offset all the cool we were dripping in. People can slip in that shit if it gets too much, but just being in your company is good enough.’

John rolls his eyes at you.

‘Sheesh, Dave!’ he says.

‘John, are you implying that you _don’t_ bring the cool factor down in our hangouts?’ Karkat says.

You offer him a righteous bump and John walks away to class, leaving you both alone.

‘Seriously though,’ Karkat says. ‘Are you cool with this? I don’t mind if you want to just hang some other night. Or we could ask Sollux, I don’t care.’

‘Dude, I love hanging at your place,’ you say. ‘What, you think I can’t handle you without dilution, I’ll be the solution, I’m your absolution, you’re my retribution.’

‘Oh my god, never mind, you’re uninvited,’ Karkat says. ‘None of that even made sense.’

‘That is so unacceptable,’ you say. ‘Karkles, what do I gotta do, let me come back to your place.’

‘Nope, you’re uninvited, and also we’re late, so shut up.’

You spend the first half of maths writing Karkat ironic apology raps, apologising for rapping by rapping is hilarious. Then Rose manages to look over at your notebook halfway through and then steals it. You let her because you know she’s only improving it and you actually manage to work on maths for ten minutes before she slips it back.

Yeah, she’s fixed your timing in places and put in some fancy words, but she’s also written you a little note about how you seem awful keen to get to Karkat’s house alone and that’s rather interesting because she’s almost positive she caught you staring at his butt the other day. You check the teacher isn’t looking before you show her your middle finger behind your back.

You end up just following Karkat to his car after school and he opens the passenger door for you like he didn’t uninvite you so you guess he was just being hyperbolic.

‘You’re a real gentleman, you know that?’ you say.

‘Shut up, Strider, not all cars have central locking.’ He still closes the door for you before he goes to his door and you do kinda feel like he’s being gentlemanly. Like you’re on a date. Because it’s just the two of you. And he’s gay. Which you’re cool with! Two boys in a car together on their lonesome.

‘You’re weirdly quiet,’ Karkat says as he starts the car.

‘Man, that maths stuff, it just rots my fucking brain. You want to hear the apology rap I wrote you?’

‘What did you do that needed apologising for? Fuck, Strider, have you tried to prank me?’

‘Nah, just for rapping at you before.’

Karkat attempts to glare at you while also refusing to take his eyes off the road for more than a second and a half at a time. You have to work real hard to keep your poker face in place.

‘That counts as ironic in your head, doesn’t it?’ he says.

‘Yup.’

‘I fucking hate you, why am I friends with you?’

‘Is it ‘cause I have a cute butt?’

Why did you say that? Why do you always make things weird? Would you have said that before he came out? Is it better that you’re okay with joking about it? Like, woah, it’s no big deal, I joke about everything, I’d only _not_ joke about this if it made me uncomfortable but here I am, joking about it!

‘Yes, Strider, obviously I would have somehow managed to stop being friends with you years ago if it weren’t for your cute butt. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have too many mutual friends to be able to untangle ourselves now.’

‘Dude, cold,’ you say. ‘We’re hanging out one-on-one now, you can’t pretend I’m just here by some mutual friend bullshit.’

‘Cold as the motherfucking arctic, that’s me,’ Karkat says. You smirk because he always sounds so formal when he swears in real life, but he uses the most perplexing and creative cusses online, it’s hilarious.

‘Dude, tell me I’m your friend,’ you insist.

‘You’re my … Facebook friend,’ he says.

‘Dude.’

‘You’re my … classmate.’

‘ _Dude_.’

‘You’re my school-place proximity associate.’

You groan and tip your head back against the carseat.

‘You’re my … hey, look, we’re here.’

You follow Karkat into his house and wait for him to speak again. His mom is in the kitchen where you both dump your bags.

‘Hey mom,’ Karkat says. ‘You remember my … friend, Dave.’

You narrowly repress the urge to jump and punch the air. That would be pretty dorky.

‘Hey, Mrs V,’ you say instead.

‘Boys,’ she says. ‘How was school?’

‘Fine,’ Karkat says. ‘We’re going to hang in my room.’

‘Leave the door open!’

‘Mom, gross, it’s Dave,’ Karkat says, already walking away.

‘Catchya later Mrs V,’ you say as politely as you can before following Karkat to his room. ‘I’m your _frieeeeeeeend_ ,’ you say, grabbing him round the middle and resting your chin on his shoulder.’

‘You’re a pain in my ass,’ Karkat says, but he sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. You let him shrug you off him and sit on his bed, facing his tiny TV.

‘What was that about the door?’ you ask while he gathers pillows from the floor to lean against.

‘Ugh, no, don’t worry about it,’ Karkat says, throwing his armful at you.

‘And you said “gross” because I’m me …’

‘Surely your Bro has rules like this? I know Egbert does …’ Karkat says.

‘Is she worried we’re gonna get our mack on?’

Karkat busies himself trying to pull a blanket out from under his computer chair. You’re pretty sure it isn’t as hard as he’s making out to be. Making _it_ out to be.

‘Dude, you only told us last week, how long has she known?’

‘I told everyone at the same time, just got it all over with,’ Karkat says. He’s got the blanket free now and he shoves his new pile of soft shit onto the bed next to you and starts fiddling with the TV.

‘You had like … a coming out day?’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t want to tell my friends and not my mom because then she’d be all “why don’t you trust me” and “you can tell me anything” and “blah blah, I’m supportive” and “I signed a petition for gay marriage, remember!”’ Karkat makes weird mom puppets out of his hands while he talks, even though he’s still not facing you. ‘And then I didn’t want to tell my family and not my friends because that’s kinda weird and it was more of a formality with most of you anyway … And then mom wanted to throw me a party and I had to tell her _fuck no_ , why is she so weird? And dad backed me up on that, thank god.’

‘Your mom is the best.’

‘Yeah, well.’ He finishes setting up his playstation and sits on the bed next to you. ‘Are we playing games or watching something?’ he asks.

‘COD?’ you suggest. Because you’re a manly man. With a gay friend. And maybe watching a movie would be a bit too date-like for you, without Egbert as a buffer.

Karkat has to get back down to change the disks over and you sneakily stare at his butt, just to see if he has a nice butt, just because … well, you’ve just never had reason to think about his butt before, but there it is and actually it’s a very nice butt and you’re gonna stare at your hands or something now before he catches you.

He’s still better at COD, which strikes you as unfair, somehow.

‘Calling you gay out of frustration really isn’t as fun anymore,’ you muse as you’re forced to wait for him to revive you _again_ so you can take out some more zombies.

‘Heaven forbid you have to come up with more creative insults,’ he says. ‘Or, even worse, retire the use of “gay” as an insult, that would be heartbreaking.’

‘I can’t help it that it’s a fun word to say, Vantas. And sometimes stuff is actually really gay and it needs to be pointed out, I’m just doing my civic duty.’

He stops watching the screen to punch you in the shoulder. You kill a zombie that would have gotten him and then wonder why you did that when he doesn’t protect you when you have to take your hand from the controller to rub at your sore shoulder.

‘Thing about insults is that they’re supposed to offend,’ you say philosophically. ‘I think “gay” has become a more effective insult since we’re not supposed to use it derogatively anymore.’

‘Fuck, I can’t revive you, there’s too many of them,’ he says. ‘No, fuck, that’s not, argh, Strider, why’d you have to be so crap at this?’

His character dies and he flops back into the pillow mound behind you. It bounces a bit.

‘Again?’ you ask as the game cycles back to the menu.

‘Have you magically gotten some skills in the last 30 seconds?’ he says, eyebrows at peak sarcasm height.

‘Fine, put one of your _gay_ movies on,’ you say, just prodding to see if he’ll bite.

‘I’m going to take that literally,’ he says, back on hands and knees.

You watch how he makes sure the disk is right way up in its case, so careful with the things and then he’s just skimming through his movies so you watch his butt again for a bit. Nope, that’s dangerous, you sated your curiosity before, you don’t need to keep checking him out, you’re being really stupid about this.

‘Oh my god, are you serious?’ you ask because not only is it a gay film, it’s a gay musical and there are just two of you on a bed watching a gay musical and you’re both boys and you think your brain is about to have a blue screen error message.

‘Have you seen it before?’ Karkat asks innocently.

‘No,’ you say, ‘obviously not.’

‘Well then it’s a good fucking choice because this is one of the best musicals ever made.’

‘How did I ever think you were straight?’ you wonder.

‘You thought I was straight?’ he says. ‘What an idiot.’

You’re annoyed by the fact that you actually really like musicals. You haven’t seen many, most of them on movie marathon nights when it was Karkat’s turn to pick (how did you ever think he was straight?), but making music a focus in movies is absolutely a positive in your book. And shit, this is going to be sad, isn’t it. Sad and catchy. And really gay.

You push your shades up onto your head halfway through because he’s focused on the screen, he’s not going to look at you and actually this is a beautifully shot movie, you want to see it properly.

When Angel dies, you catch Karkat crying and you’re not a monster so you put your arm around him and pat his shoulder awkwardly. He pretends like he isn’t crying or being cuddled for almost a full minute before he grabs himself some tissues and leans into you.

When the movie ends you realise you never took your arm away and suddenly everything feels awkward, but he doesn’t notice, he’s telling you about the differences between the movie version and the stage version and asking if you’ve ever seen a musical live.

‘Uh, no, not really my scene,’ you say.

‘Yeah, but you _like_ musicals, don’t pretend you don’t, you get all foot-tappy and you _like_ them.’

‘Uh …’ you say. You’re still feeling awkward about having cuddled a gay guy while a gay musical was playing and your brain isn’t quite functioning at a normal level.

‘Because Grease is playing at the theatre in a month and I usually take Nepeta because she likes musicals too but she’s got that camp thing and we could go as a group if that would make you … less making that face …’

Ah, shades aren’t on. You get halfway to flicking them back down before you realise that would be hella obvious and you turn the movement into a neck scratch instead.

‘Hey, I’ll go with you, I’m not … Yeah, you’re right, they’re pretty cool and … Hey, what time is it?’

You are the king of cool, it’s you.

Karkat looks at his watch and you slide your shades down.

‘Nearly 7, why?’

‘Uh, I should probably get going, this is usually when I head.’

‘Stay for dinner, your bro sucks at feeding you.’

You pull out your phone and see you actually have messages from your bro.

Find your own food tonight. 

I’m at Jake’s. 

Do not call me unless it’s an emergency. 

#becausesex #nohomo 

There’s money on the counter for pizza.

‘Actually yeah, that’d be sweet,’ you say. ‘Bro’s abandoned me for the night, what else is new?’

Karkat scoffs.

‘You want me to see if you can stay the night?’

‘Hell yes,’ you say. You kinda hate sleeping in your apartment by yourself.

Karkat leaves to go ask his mom and you reply to your bro.

gonna stay at karkats tonight 

his mom feeds me proper food 

just watched rent are you proud of how gay im becoming 

tell jake i say hi 

Stop blowing up my phone, kid, swear to god. I really need to change your ringtone. 

what no 

crazy frog is an icon and needs to badingbaaaadeey as much as possible 

if you get rid of it who will uphold the legacy 

There is literally no way to retrieve my boner, are you happy? 

haha thrilled

Karkat comes back into the room.

‘You can stay, but apparently we have to sleep in the living room because we’re less likely to get up to mischief there. Mom logic, I don’t even know.’

‘Yeah, that’s cool, check out how mad I made Bro.’

You hand him your phone.

Karkat lets out a little “heh” of laughter. You always feel super accomplished when you make him laugh.

‘I can’t believe you grew up being raised by the gayest man I’ve ever met and your gaydar sucks so bad,’ he says, handing your phone back.

‘What?’ you say.

‘You didn’t realise I was gay,’ he says.

‘No, I mean, yeah, I didn’t, but Bro isn’t gay.’

Karkat looks at you flatly.

‘No, Jake’s just his friend … they’re best bros, that’s why they hang out so much …’

Karkat raises his eyebrows.

‘I can see why you’d think that, because of the sex joke, but he always says no homo, so it … they just kiss goodbye to fuck with me …’

You sit back down on the bed and hold your head in your hands. But all the jokes … he was being ironic … but if he actually is gay, that’s just another level of irony, isn’t it?

Holy shit, Bro’s gay.

‘This cannot be happening,’ Karkat says. ‘Are you seriously saying you didn’t know?’

You shake your head in your hands and say nothing.

You feel the bed sink a bit when Karkat sits next to you.

‘Uh … there there,’ he says uncertainly, patting you on the shoulder. ‘What’s going through your head right now?’

‘Is _everyone_ gay? Oh my god, Lalonde has been telling me he’s gay for years but she says that about _everyone_ , she says that about _me_ , holy shit, this is … and Jake is always so nice to me because I’m his boyfriend’s kid, of _course_ …’

‘Uh …’ Karkat says. ‘Traditionally you’re supposed to have this kind of freak out when you realise that _you_ are gay, not when you realise that your bro is …’

‘And he has _t-shirts_ that say “I’m gay!” on them, _multiple_ t-shirts, why am I so stupid?’

‘I’m starting to think I’m not qualified for this …’

‘And when I found those magazines he didn’t plant them there to mess with me, he _hid_ them from me because they were legit!’

‘Rose, I think I broke Dave,’

You peek up from inside your arms (when did you get into fetal position with your head in your arms, this is so cliche) and see that Karkat’s opened Skype on his laptop.

‘Yes, he does seem pretty broken. What happened?’

‘Rose, did you know Bro is gay?’ you ask, unfolding yourself and taking the computer from Karkat.

Rose lifts her eyebrows up.

‘Yes, well, one tends to make that assumption when he comes home from his boyfriend’s house wearing a pink t-shirt that says, “I’m gay!” on it.’

‘I thought he was being ironic!’

‘I’m sure he was, but the irony is that he’s still well and truly an idiotic frat-boy, no matter how much he prefers the company of the same sex.’

‘Rose …’

‘Dave, it’s always difficult for a child when they realise that their guardian is an actual human being with their own motivations and desires, not just a provider for them. You remember how John reacted when he found out that his dad was a normal man, not a strange street-busker? Why that was his natural assumption, we will never know, but it seems that sometimes parents will go a little overboard when trying to relate to their children. Sometimes they put harlequin figurines on hall tables. Sometimes they have 20 feet tall wizards installed in your house, even though they have to take out the roof and hire an industrial crane to do so.’

You slide your shades back onto your head so you can give Rose a properly disparaging look. Her mom is kookoo banana-nuts.

‘Are you saying that because kid-Dave thought it was funny to call people “gay” on x-box, Bro just went along with that rather than sit me down and tell me?’

‘Dave, how does Bro respond when you call him gay?’

‘Usually he says something like, “you know it”, or “that’s what my boyfriend tells me” and oh my god why am I so stupid?’

‘A mystery I am yet to solve.’

‘Rose, my whole world has just shifted on its axis!’

‘I’m glad you aren’t going to be needlessly melodramatic about this revelation. Karkat, he seems functional again and my mother is calling me to dinner, can I leave him in your hands?’

‘Uh, sure, thanks …’ Karkat says. He takes the laptop away from you and closes the lid. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, just … you sure were right about my gaydar, it is faulty as fuck.’

Karkat snorts.

‘Okay, let’s go see if mom needs help with dinner, shove some normal family interactions in you before you have to go back … home.’

You nod and follow Karkat into the kitchen. For some reason, you leave your shades hooked on your shirt, even though you know that Karkat’s parents won’t make you take them off. You also know they won’t try and soak you with holy water. You’re pretty comfortable here, actually.

Dinner passes normally. Karkat’s parents ask questions about school, about your hobbies, pointedly ask if you have a partner (‘Karkat, is that the right term to use? It sounds so strange and grown up!’ ‘Mom, it’s fine. And Dave doesn’t have the capacity to hold on to a girlfriend for more than a week.’ ‘Hey, I take some offense to that.’ ‘Yeah? What’s your longest relationship?’ ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’). You and Karkat clean the dishes afterwards and then the four of you play Scrabble. It’s all very different to how dinner works at your house.

After the game, Karkat’s parents leave to the second living room and you and Karkat move all the blankets and cushions and the playstation out to the main living room.

‘Did you ever think about just pretending you were straight so you could have boys in your room no questions asked?’

‘Yeah, and have my mom think there’s no reason she can’t just come in and walk in on something sus?’

‘Just saying. Maybe I’ll tell Bro I’m gay and he’ll let me have girls in my room.’

‘Bro already lets you have girls in your room. And there’s such a thing as bisexuality.’

‘Just trying to find the perks for you, bro.’

‘The perks are that I don’t have to deal with snarky broads and boys are cute.’

You laugh at that.

‘Well, when you put it that way.’

Karkat smiles at you and flops down on the pile you’ve made on top of the camping mattresses. You guess you’ll pull them apart into separate beds later when you’re ready to sleep, no point shouting across the room to talk. You sit down with considerably more grace, because you don’t want to break your hip misjudging how deep the pillow pile goes.

‘No, seriously, no homo or whatever the fuck it is you say, but I’d love to be able to have a boyfriend who just hangs out like we do with Egbert, you know, just video games and movies and the bonus parts where we get to kiss sometimes, seems pretty sweet.’

‘Yeah …’ you say.

‘Not that … oh fuck, that probably sounded like a come on, whatever, you know I don’t mean like you or Egbert, I mean some other hypothetical gay boy who can just chill with me like a normal human, you know?’

‘Dude, I know. Why do you think my longest relationship was four days?’

Karkat laughs, a big ‘ha!’ and you grin.

‘No, because I go for a girl ‘cause she’s hot and then after I’ve made out with her a bit I realise that we have absolutely nothing in common, she’ll be talking and I’ll be pretending I’m listening and that feels fucking rude and then I’ll be talking and she’ll have that glazed over look and it’s like, man, let’s have one last make-out and then break up because this straight up does not work.’

‘So, why not go for a girl for her personality?’ Karkat says.

‘I dunno, it’s like once I’m friends with a girl she’s off-limits. Like Terezi, right, she’s such a cool chick and it’s like I know she’s cute, but kissing her would be like kissing you, it’s just strange to think of a bro that way.’

Karkat rolls his eyes at you.

‘You’re never going to make it to five days,’ he says.

You push him half-heartedly.

‘Dude, this is pretty fuckin’ gay,’ you say when he rearranges himself comfortably. ‘We are having a bona fide gossip about our feelings in what is only a few steps off being a pillow fort.’

‘Yeah, well, I am gay, what’s your excuse.’

‘Pfft, I’ll be gay for the night, I can handle it.’

‘I am not playing gay chicken with you, Strider, it doesn’t matter that I’m the gay one, I know you’ll still win.’

You smirk at him proudly. You are, in fact, the master of every form of chicken. You can watch scary videos without flinching, eat spicier foods than everyone else, have kept your cool remarkably well after someone waxed your leg as a joke. It’s what happens when you’re raised by a brother instead of parents. Sure, Bro might let down the team every now and then when it comes to things like making sure you’re eating enough vegetables, but god damn are you hard to unnerve.

‘Besides, you’ve practically given me my dream date, it’s not like this can get much gayer,’ Karkat says.

‘Challenge accepted,’ you say, getting to your feet. You hold your hand out to him.

‘What? No,’ he says.

‘Dude, I’m not gonna kiss you, I just can’t leave you thinking this is the Dave Strider romance treatment.’

He looks at you oddly for a really long time before he accepts your hand up. You grab a blanket, put it on his head and grab another for you.

‘Come on,’ you say, leading the way out the front door.

He makes sure the door isn’t locked before he follows you.

You eye the buildings around you before you see one that looks pretty easy.

‘Okay, follow my lead,’ you say.

You jog towards the building and then kick from one side to the next, kinda regretting not putting shoes on before you left. You heave yourself onto a balcony and wait for Karkat to follow. He looks at you for a minute as if wondering if you’re serious before he manages to climb up. You use the window ledge to climb up to the roof and then make your way to a flat section. There’s one advantage to being gay, you don’t think any of the girls you’ve dated would be willing or even able to go on a parkour date. You know there are plenty of girls that can, but damn, why _don’t_ you go for girls with similar interests to you.

You pat the tiles next to you and Karkat sits down. You arrange his blanket around him because you’re a god damn gentleman.

‘What are we doing?’ Karkat says.

‘Shh,’ you say. You point up to Jupiter. ‘See that star? It’s actually Jupiter.’

‘Where am I looking?’ he asks.

You look at him.

‘You’re looking absolutely nowhere near where I’m pointing, idiot.’ You squash his face to your cheek and point again.

‘See, you can tell the difference because it doesn’t twinkle.’

‘Is that the scientific term?’

‘Yes, shut up.’ You put your arm around him so it isn’t weirdly squashed between you. ‘I got hella astronomy knowledge, Karkles, let me impress the shit out of you.’

You feel his cheek move when he smiles and you show him the grand total of three constellations that you know.

‘Okay, what’s that one?’ he says when you’ve been quiet for a bit.

‘Fuck if I know,’ you say cheerfully.

‘You are the worst astronomer,’ he says.

‘Yeah, but aren’t you wooed?’

‘Dave, why are you doing this?’

You consider the question. On the one hand, it’s funny to pretend to be gay, on the other, it’s kinda cruel to lead someone on when you don’t think of them that way. You don’t think you’re cruel, but maybe you got carried away? But then, Karkat’s dream date is actually what you would like too and if Rose was right about Bro, maybe she’s right about you and how the fuck are you supposed to know if you like dudes or not when you think you probably are only attracted to people who are wrong for you?

‘If I … I guess I’m a bit …’ why are there no non-cliche words? ‘Confused.’

‘Curious, even?’ Karkat says wryly.

‘I don’t want to be a dick,’ you say.

‘That makes a change.’

‘And I think it’s probably a dick move to kiss a guy just because he’s gay and you don’t know if that’s something you could be too.’

‘Yeah, that sounds kinda dickish.’

‘I’ve only kissed girls who were strange and aloof, like they were some kind of sexy mystery. And they stopped being interesting once I won them over. Guys aren’t like that, you know? But how do I know that you aren’t just a challenge, like if I kiss you, maybe you won’t be interesting anymore because I did it, I wooed the guy and Strider moves work again.’

‘So I should not let you kiss me?’

‘But then if you’re still interesting, what happens then? Do I become obsessed with you like I do with the girls? Are my feelings more real this time because I like you as a person? They feel real every time, I don’t know what to do.’

Karkat sighs next to you.

‘Dave, at the moment, we’re two friends who have very little riding on this. If we let this drag on, one of us is going to get our feelings hurt, but our feelings are pretty minor at the moment. So … this is happening.’

He pulls your chin up with his fingers and presses a kiss to your lips. He pulls back and looks at you for a moment before looking down at his blanket, twisting it with his hands. Like that was a good enough experiment for you to know anything. You put your hand on his neck and guide him in for a proper kiss, hold him in place. Your lips move together and it’s kinda weird because it’s Karkat, but that’s just making it a bit thrilling, like you shouldn’t be doing this, you’ve got goosebumps because you’re not sure if this allowed at all.

He nibbles on your lower lip a little and your stomach swoops because that’s an invitation if you’ve ever had one and your hand moves up to his hair as you reach out with your tongue. God, you can feel your pulse racing all over your body as he kisses you deeper, he’s into this, fuck, _you’re_ into this, who’d have known he’d be a good kisser? You wish you could get closer but you’re on a fucking roof and who thought that was a good idea, you want to push him down and lean on his body, just take control and kiss him until he isn’t able to think anymore.

You’re surprised when his hand finds your shoulder and gently pushes you back. You force yourself to look at his eyes instead of his lips, but it’s hard when his eyes seem to be asking you to kiss him again and his lips are all kiss-swollen and …

‘Yeah, okay, that was not a straight thing I just did,’ you say quietly, sitting back again. You hadn’t even realised that you were leaning towards him so much.

‘What are you thinking?’ Karkat asks.

‘Uh …’ you’re thinking that you should go back to his house, to that big pile of blankets and cushions and make out until your lips hurt.

‘Dave,’ Karkat says and you force yourself to focus. ‘Am I … Have you lost interest now?’

‘No,’ you say.

‘Oh.’

...

‘Wanna get down from here?’ you say.

‘Yeah, sure.’

You jump silently onto the balcony and catch Karkat so he doesn’t make noise and alarm whoever lives in the house. You make sure he’s watching how you do it before you climb down and are glad when he gets down fine. You walk back to his house in silence.

When you’re back in the blanket pile, the silence seems to weigh more. It’s tense and you don’t know what to do with it. You think about what Karkat said before he kissed you, about getting it done now while there aren’t feelings involved. You’re not sure if you can be that impartial about this, it’s going to be awkward no matter what, but if you kiss him now like you want to maybe you won’t pine for him and make it awkward later.

Or maybe you’re thinking with a piece of anatomy that has no business trying to make decisions.

Really, you can’t think of a single reason not to kiss him, except that it’s fucking scary making the first move and you don’t know if he wants to kiss you back and what if he was just kissing you before because you practically told him it would cure you of liking him.

Ah, fuck it.

You look over at him and he seems to be thinking just as much as you. You should ask him what about. You should have a mature conversation about what just happened.

Well, you should probably also do your homework and do your laundry more often, “should” can go get fucked.

You scoot closer to him and put your palm gently on his cheek. You give him plenty of time to push you away or protest, and then you kiss him as sweetly as you know how. He responds beautifully, arching up into you and you didn’t realise you could kiss so passionately without tongues involved. When he licks at your lips you can’t help but make a tiny moan and you both freeze because you’re inside now and you’re in the living room exactly so you don’t get up to this kind of mischief.

He laughs against your mouth and your skin tingles like it did when you helped Egbert put smoke bombs in people’s lockers last April Fools. You kiss him harder and he grips your back with his fingers and you kind of want to be grinding against his stupid, perfect body and clearly you’re not just confused because this is very different from kissing a girl and you’re glad, you’re glad it’s Karkat _specifically_.

‘Hold on,’ he says, pushing you away.

You let yourself be pushed completely over and groan because you could be making out and he’s fucking about with the TV. He puts on a movie, you don’t care which one and then he’s on top of you and okay, this is fine.

‘Sorry, just was getting paranoid about how loud I was breathing,’ he says, his voice all husky and quiet.

You hum into his mouth and yeah, you’re less self-conscious now the TV is on. His legs are straddling your hips and he’s leaning down to kiss you and you consider fighting him to be on top but you don’t really care. It’s nice that he’s working for it, it’s nice to lie back in the cushions and _holy shit_ it’s nice that he’s grinding against you, no way you imagined that.

You push back against him as much as you can and he rolls his hips and it’s so much more intentional and delicious now he knows you’re on board. You grab his ass and pull him through the motion again and he moans against your lips and holy fuck do you want him.

An explosion happens on the TV and you both jump at the sudden noise and then you’re both laughing and there’s no stopping you, this is ridiculous, he’s fallen off you to lie on his back and laugh and this is the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened. You manage to mostly calm down, but then you meet his eyes again and he’s grinning bigger than you’ve seen him and that sets you off and you need to stop laughing or you’re gonna break a rib, _shit_.

You’re careful to look anywhere but him until you’ve got those final stubborn giggles under control. When you’re back to normal, you see he’s rolled over onto his side, facing you, so you copy.

‘Dave, do you like me?’ he says.

‘Yeah,’ you say.

‘Do you … want to …’

‘You can say it,’ you prompt, trying to keep yourself from smiling too much.

‘You’re such a shit, I can’t believe I was going to ask you out,’ Karkat says.

‘Hey!’ you say, and he rolls his eyes and rolls away from you. You climb over him until you’re on his other side, facing him again and he tries to look stern but his eyes are all happy and shit, you really like him.

‘Want to go out sometime?’ you ask.

‘You going to take me on a date?’ Karkat says, teasing.

‘Yeah, a proper one too, none of this playing video games and watching movies stuff, you crazy unambitious fool.’

He’s smiling at you really big and you just want to kiss him. You _can_ kiss him! You lean in and kiss his smiling mouth and then his nose and then nudge him with your nose, trying to get him to hurry up and answer because you both know he’s just playing hard to get.

‘Yeah, fine,’ he says.

You kiss him again and then roll over because you’re going to be classy about this now you’re sure you’ll have a second date. You scoot up higher on the cushions so you don’t have to strain to see the TV and hold open your arms for him to cuddle into.

‘So, how long have you been pining after me, waiting for me to like you back?’ you tease.

‘Who says I even like you now,’ Karkat grumbles, but he squeezes you round the middle where’s he’s all cuddled in, so you know not to take it personally.

You grin and kiss his hair. You can’t wait to tell John that it only took one sleepover with Karkat to turn you gay.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all today, not sure if I want to write more or leave it as a one-shot yet. Will see how I feel.  
> If any of you want to prompt me to write related stories, go right ahead!


End file.
